Among tests about “Who are you at Pororoca Louca?” and many interruptions later – a very busy woman – Rafaela Artero grabs the recorder and starts to talk about herself. “I must say that the only reason I go to this party is the outfit.” After telling me all about her unicorn costume, she declares laughing: “And I really love glitter”.
But her passions doesn’t stop on sparkling things, instead they go all the way to Academic Communication. The 21 year old journalism student is one of researchers at CIP – Interdisciplinary Research Center. The best part about this is that she researches about fashion and pop culture.
“I wanted to study fashion since I was 8, I used to do clothes to my dolls. At 10, I started to look up about admission exams to fashion schools.” But even to a very driven little girl it was hard. She explains that she gave up on fashion a few years later and was filled with uncertainty. “The end of high school was a time of doubt: I wanted to work with fashion and also international relations, journalism or languages. Plot twist: she gave up on languages because she didn’t want to be a teacher.
But her first impressions on the academic world changed when she was a sophomore in Cásper.“Journalism is a wide field. After freshman year, I decided that I needed to study fashion again and became really focused about it.” In 2016, she went to Intercom to present an article about Bling Ring – The Hollywood Gang: an analysis on consumption and celebrity. “That’s when I found myself and realized that I couldn’t escape. For starters, my mother is a teacher and researcher, as well.”
At CIP her choice was to analyze Moschino’s creative director Jeremy Scott and the communicational aesthetics in his creations, using Pierre Bourdieu’s theories. “I believe that every art production takes us to a reflection. That’s why I want to analyze daily and popular culture with theory. The goal of the academic field is to make people think about their everyday and ‘get out of the box’, get new perspectives.”
“When I got into CIP to study with professor Luis Mauro de Sá Martino, I was like ‘Hi, I want to study fashion!’ and I bet he was thinking ‘Who’s this crazy person?’, she laughs.
In the future, she wants to get a master’s degree and have her own website. “In five years I can see the news ‘Anna Wintour declares Rafaela Artero as her successor’ or something like ‘The youngest editor ever: at 25, Rafaela Artero is the new editor of Vogue’. Nothing much. I don’t think we should be very ambitious anyway.”
More about Rafa:
Zodiac Sign: Cancer with rising in Sagittarius
Currently reading: Anna Karenina (Liev Tolstói)
Favorite authors: Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde
Favorite TV shows: Friends, The Tudors, Gilmore Girls and Vikings
Spirit Animal: Pug
Funny fact: At 14, she wanted to be a specialist on the Tudors’ Monarchs and Dynasty.